


Precipice

by SophieRipley



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: One Shot, Strangers, Suicide Attempt, helping people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 17:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7541386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieRipley/pseuds/SophieRipley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Wilde finds a troubled youth in the Rainforest District and talks him out of a rather permanent decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precipice

**Author's Note:**

> The following fic deals with themes of suicide. If you are sensitive to these themes, please proceed with caution. If you are currently struggling yourself with suicidal thoughts, I urge you to please seek help. We love you, and we need you here.

The humidity in the Rainforest District had never done good things to Nick’s fur.  That’s not to say he didn’t _like_ the rainforest district: it was a beautiful place with wonderful smells and delightful heights, and the near-constant drizzle was sometimes a welcome feeling.  He simply disliked how much product he had to use to fix the damage the humidity did to his well-groomed hide.

Today, that was the furthest thing on his mind.

Nick Wilde carefully approached and then sat on the edge of a treetop platform, hundreds of meters of open air beneath his dangling feet.  He was not in uniform because it was his day off, and he was not with his partner because Judy was having a late dinner with another officer, ostensibly to discuss a minor theft case but probably actually to socialize.  Next to Nick was a very young wolf, perhaps barely into adulthood, his clothing threadbare and torn, his backpack full not of textbooks and homework but of the necessities of street survival:  a musty blanket, a few reusable bottles, a single fork, spoon, and knife that were beginning to rust.  Nick had never seen the boy before, didn’t even know his name, but as he sat next to him, Nick greeted him like an old friend.

“Hey buddy.  Great spot you picked for us, man, I love it up here.”  He didn’t look over to the boy, instead gazing across the canopy as he spoke conversationally.  “Up here it’s almost like you can see into eternity.”  There’s a long stretch of silence; Nick thought he wouldn’t respond, was prepared to wait as long as it took as the sun set, but at long last a reply came. 

“You’re mistaking me for someone else,” muttered the boy.  His voice was low, almost hollow, and to anyone else would have sounded cheerful, if tired.  Nick, though, knew that sound, and the words proved his hunch.

“Not really,” replied Nick, turning to look at the wolf.  “Do you believe in angels?”  The question clearly threw the boy off, and he glanced over at Nick, his forehead wrinkled in confusion.  His eyes were a beautiful golden hazel and Nick smiled; it wasn’t his usual sarcastic smirk or his disarmingly charming grin, it was a genuinely friendly and warmly inviting smile.

“Angels,” repeated Nick.  The boy shook his head.  “That’s a shame.  I’m not very religious myself, but I believe in them.  I met one once, you know.” This brought a hint of curiosity to the boy’s otherwise inflectionless eyes.

“Who was it?”  The boy’s question held only a tiny bit more life than his earlier statement, but it was enough.

“She was a bunny, actually, of all things.”  Nick turned back to the setting sun and his smile turned pensive.  “I was in a bad place, man.  Conning animals out of their hard-earned money…hadn’t spoken to my mother in years…nothing to look forward to when I got up and nowhere to go when I slept.  No friends, no family I could face.  Oh, I looked happy enough.  Put on a smile every morning, fooled even myself for a long…”  He sighed.  “…long time.”  Silence fell and the sun continued to set, now very close to the horizon.  Minutes went by; Nick watched the falling sun, and the boy watched Nick. 

“…so what happened?”  The question was tentative, shy, and sad.  Nick drew in a deep lungful of moist air and slowly breathed it back out.

“I conned a cop.”  The smile returned to Nick’s face, but this time it showed regret.  “A fluffy little bunny cop, first of her kind, and I conned her out of twenty bucks.  It made me a cool two hundred, and at first I didn’t think anything of it.  But then she saw what I had done and she…confronted me.

“I was very rude to her.  In a charming way of course, but still rude.  Told her all about how we can’t change what we are, we’re stuck with the shit end of the stick so we best learn how to use it.  And you know what she did?”  Nick glanced without turning his head at the wolf next to him, taller than Nick by a good six inches but somehow so much smaller.  The wolf shook his head mutely, but his golden eyes urged Nick to continue.

“She endured.”  The fox flicked his eyes back to the sun, which had just touched the horizon and started to bleed into the ground, and left the statement to hang for a long moment.  “A day later she came to find me.  Not to arrest me, not to kick my ass, not to taunt my defeatist attitude.  She came to me for help.  She knew I was a fox, knew I was a con artist, and she came to _me_.  I had been looked past and trodden on and not noticed—not truly noticed—for so many years…. But she changed everything.  She _saw me_.”  The wolf looked away and hung his head.

“Nick Wilde.”  Nick offered his paw, but the wolf didn’t take it.  A long moment later, though, he replied.

“Brian.” 

“It’s great to meet you, Brian.  I told you I believe in angels, and I do.  I think that we all have an angel who watches over us.  A guardian in the shadows.  We never know what form they’ll take.  One day, grizzled old goat.  Next day, little starry-eyed doe.  They can be as fierce as any bear, but they’re never here to win our battles for us.  They offer us whispers, Brian.  Hushed tones spoken through our heart, reminding us that it’s us.  That _we_ hold the power to change the world.”  Brian scoffed; it was a heartless sound, a helpless cry of help from a lost soul balancing on a dangerous edge.  The wolf leaned unconsciously toward the abyss of open air before him, his body betraying his intent.

“If I have an angel, it’s left me like everyone else.  It doesn’t exist anymore.”  His words held the first true piercing of emotion Nick heard from the boy the whole time, and a surge of hope flowed through the fox.

Nick smiled.

“We can deny they exist all we want, Brian.  But they’ll show up anyway.  Always, in the strangest places, the weirdest times.  They speak through whoever we can imagine.  They’ll shout through demons if they have to, Brian.  They’ll dare us.  Challenge us to _fight_.”  Nick looked over, and Brian put his head in his paws; he was shaking.

“I’ve been there,” said Nick heavily.  “I’ve stood on that precipice.  It was like I was running through the jungle on the last ounce of energy I had left.  Beaten, bruised, battered, and shouting to the heartless void to give me something, _anything_ with which to fight.  That’s what this is, Brian.  It felt like it at the time, but I never gave up.  I heard that voice challenging me and I cried back at it to give me _something_.  A _stick_ would do, anything to give me a fighting chance.”  Nick’s voice had begun to quiver with emotion, his memory of those dark times trying to overwhelm him.  Normally he wouldn’t show it; he’d squash it down beneath a veneer of sarcasm.  Today, he let it flow. 

The tears were twin streams matting his fur, and he felt no shame.

Beside him, Brian took in a shuddering breath.

“Why are you helping me?”  The boy’s cry was a quiet shout of hope and confusion and Nick put his arm around the wolf.

“I’m not, ” said Nick gravely.  “I see you, Brian, and I’m just challenging you.  I’m Just handing out sticks.”

The last limb of the sun fell, finally, into the chasm of night, and Brian broke into sobs, leaning into the fox next to him, a canid he had only an hour prior never met.

Nick cried with him, because he knew, could feel in his bones, that the wolf had stepped back from the edge.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a tumblr post detailing human acts of kindness, among which was a cop who talked a kid out of suicide. There is so very little I can do to change the world for the better, and all I have to do it with is my written word. It's a poor excuse for humanitarianism, but if this story inspires even a single person to seek help or to help someone else, it will have been worth it.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
